Good Morning, Sunshine
by crocious
Summary: Elizaveta is a small time writer in a big time city. She's got a job, a roommate, a place and friends she likes. But she has a nagging feeling that she just doesn't fit right in her life. When she winds up everywhere she's never been with a stranger who knows her perfectly, will she find the strength to live the life she was meant to live with the person she was meant to be with?
1. Hello

Good Morning, Sunshine

**A/N: I've had this one in my head for a while, sans Hetalia. That is why everyone's human. I have never travelled that much, so if you have fun stories about your European trips or homes, please share! The best stories are the ones we write together!**

**WARNING: Some adult content.**

Elizaveta Hédarváry liked New York.

She didn't like it because it was an overly pleasant place to be. Nor did she like it because the people were so charming. She didn't like it for the food, or the culture, or the fashion. She didn't like it for the smell.

Elizaveta liked New York because liking New York was a smart career move.

Elizaveta, or Liz to the sort of people who insist on calling people "Liz," was a playwright. Not a particularly _good_ one, not even a "not terrible" one. Her last failure was underscored by her star and flatmate, Alfred, going completely off script and forcing her decent English lines into some sort of interpretive dance. She had been humiliated. But even though Alfred had ruined her scathing review on the EU and even though only six or so people had been in the audience in the room above the bar on 6th, New York is the sort of place that loves that sort of show, and both she and Alfred were called in to write and act for a place that paid real American dollars for work. Not enough to quit their respective day jobs and keep their apartment, but it was enough to affirm to Elizaveta that leaving Budapest wasn't the worst thing she'd ever done.

Tiredly, Elizaveta climbed out of the taxi. She trudged into the crowded Chinese restaurant and sighed.

"Liz!" called out a Korean accent.

Elizaveta forced a smile as Im Yong Soo ran at her and hugged her from behind. She peeled his fingers from her breasts and elbowed him playfully in the stomach.

"Yong Soo, if you keep grabbing customers' breasts like that, Mr Wang is going to fire you again."

The Korean laughed. "I hope so! I haven't been fired in like a week! It's weird!"

"That _is_ weird," Elizaveta grinned, tightening her long brown ponytail. "If he's not feeling well, I can make him some _kohlrabi_."

Yong Soo made a face. "And give him a heart attack? You know how defensive he is about Korean food."

"Chinese food."

"Yeah, but it originated in Korea!"

Elizaveta rolled her eyes and tugged Yong Soo's nose. "I'm going up to change out of this stupid uniform."

"Ooh, let me come!" Yong Soo teased.

Elizaveta ignored him and dragged her feet up the stairs to the tiny apartment above the restaurant she shared with Alfred. She nearly fell asleep against the door trying to turn the key and stumbled in.

"LIZ!" Alfred shouted, glomping her against the door.

"Oof!" she replied.

"Liz, I'm so glad you're here! I can't remember what I'm supposed to wear tonight! Is tonight Pizza Guy or Pool Boy?"

Elizaveta pulled herself free of Alfred and headed to her bedroom. "Tonight's Preacher's Son," she called over her shoulder. "Pizza Guy isn't until Thursday."

"Shit!"

Elizaveta sighed as she peeled off her coffee shop shirt and threw it into the growing pile of dirty laundry. She didn't know why she expected Alfred to remember who he was supposed to play on any given night. The kid was sweet and cute, but dumber than a box of rocks. Probably the reason he'd run away from Kansas to pursue an acting career. Well, that and his parents were powerfully homophobic.

Alfred barged into Elizaveta's room without knocking just as she finished buttoning up her blouse.

"I don't remember any of the Preacher's Son lines!" he cried, panicked.

Elizaveta smiled and straightened Alfred's glasses on his nose. She had to stand on her toes to reach. "You're a soft core porn star," she said, fixing his hair. "Most of your lines are 'unh' and 'yeah.'"

The man blushed. He had a peculiar view on acting in porn, as if it was something to be ashamed of. Elizaveta didn't know why he was so fussy if _she_ could nut up and waste her love of writing on grunts and moans. Just like she reminded Alfred after every shoot over a shared fifth of cheap vodka- "We love our crafts too much to turn back. One day, after you've won your third Emmy and I've got my Oscar, we'll meet up again and laugh about what we did to get here."

Elizaveta softened. "I'll run through them with you on the ride over, alright?"

Alfred broke into a smile and hugged her. "You're the best, Liz! I'm so glad I'm roomies with the top Hungarian soft core gay porn writer in New York!"

"And I'm so glad I'm roommates with someone who makes me feel useful. Grab your shit, we're gonna be late."

Alfred laughed and ran out to grab his costume. Elizaveta smiled and slung her purse over her shoulder.

…

"You're a sinner, John. And there's only one way to save your soul."

"How, Father? How?"

"Get on your knees, John, and pray. Close your eyes and pray. It's the only way to please the Lord."

_Bom chika bow wow_, Elizaveta thought as Alfred and the new actor did their jobs. She blushed and tried not to watch and make Alfred feel uncomfortable again, but _butts_.

Kiku Honda, the director, spotted her fighting herself and waved her over. She turned scarlet and dragged herself to the director's chair.

"Elizaveta," he murmured in his slight Japanese accent. "I rather like this one. The juxtaposition of religious artifacts and sodomy makes for a compelling metaphor. Alfred, FASTER! We don't have all night!"

Elizaveta tore her eyes away from the monitors in front of Kiku. "Th-thank you, Mr Honda," she said. "I thought that using the prayer candlewax was uniquely taboo."

"I've been in this business a lot longer than you," Kiku smiled, "and I've never seen that. Well done."

Elizaveta blushed and watched the screens with her director. He pointed at one.

"Something's missing in this shot," he murmured.

Elizaveta studied it. Alfred was very good at his job, as was the new actor. They managed to touch each other without actually touching each other in the peculiar way soft core porn actors had. Watching them dry hump the air above each other seemed silly now, but Kiku would go back and edit them the film expertly. No, there was nothing missing in the shot.

But suddenly, violently, Elizaveta felt a gaping, crippling void in herself, the sort of falling sensation she got when she climbed the stairs in the dark and she thought there was one more stair than there was. She clutched her stomach as she saw spots in the corner of her vision. She collapsed into the chair beside Kiku and forgot how to breathe as her eyes burned with tears.

"Connection," she whispered.

Kiku looked up and smiled. "What would I do without you? ALFRED! JOHN! MORE EYE CONTACT!"

Elizaveta felt queasy and she covered her face. What was she doing here? New York was loud and smelly and gave her a migraine. The six years she'd been here since she'd come to study theatre hadn't made New York any more her home than Budapest had been after her parents died. She had friends and coworkers and a roommate, but she didn't understand them and they couldn't understand her. She had no one here. She was all alone in a big city, stuck writing throwaway dialogue for a two-bit porn company so she could buy food and pay for her room. The world was moving around her, and she wasn't part of it.

…

Alfred handed Elizaveta the bottle of vodka, as per their nightly ritual. Jon Stewart cracked a joke on the TV and she swigged down the fiery water to drown out the laughter.

"I'm never going to get out of porn, am I?" Alfred moaned. This was also part of their nightly ritual: they would sit on their ratty couch and each bitch about their lives, their jobs, the news, and the other would make them feel better until they were both laughing too hard to breathe. It was a nice ritual.

But Elizaveta couldn't bring herself to do it. "I don't know," she murmured. She took another gulp of vodka and sank deeper into the couch, her legs across Alfred's lap.

Alfred was taken aback. "What?"

Elizaveta sighed and handed him the bottle. "What are we doing, Alfred? Why are we here?"

Alfred took a swig and passed the bottle back. "We're following our dreams. I'm here so I can be a star and get rich doing what I love. You're here because you've always wanted to write something meaningful that would change someone's life."

"Vodka makes you sentimental," Elizaveta said moodily, taking a gulp.

"And it usually makes you silly," Alfred said. "What's wrong?"

Instead of answering, Elizaveta took a resentful swig of vodka and watched the McDonald's commercial flicker across their crappy TV. She saw it without seeing it, happy people cutting to more happy people cutting to more happy people. McDonald's customers must have it all figured out.

"Liz."

Elizaveta looked up. "Yeah."

"Tell me what's going on."

Elizaveta swung her legs off Alfred's lap and staggered to her feet. "Nothing. M'fine. Just tired." She handed the rest of the vodka to Alfred and stumbled to her room and into her bed.

And then, without fully knowing why, she sobbed into her pillow until she fell asleep.

…

The next morning, Elizaveta woke up late. On an ordinary day, this would throw her into a panic attack. She would scramble around her room to find her uniform, accidentally brush her teeth with Neosporin, yell at Alfred and chase down a taxi before showing up two minutes late to the disapproving glare of her teenage manager at Starbucks. It would ruin her day.

But this didn't feel like an ordinary day. She'd had four hours of sleep and she had a killer hangover, but she moved serenely to get ready for her day. She even lingered in the shower to shave her legs and let the cool water wash away the summer sweat. Elizaveta packed her clothes into her large saddlebag, the one she rarely used. Something told her that she was putting too much stuff in her bag for a day at work, but she ignored the feeling and packed in her conditioner.

Alfred was eating breakfast in the kitchen.

"Liz?" he said, confused. "You'd better hurry, you're gonna be mega late!"

Elizaveta took a sip of coffee from his mug. "What time's your brother getting in tonight?"

"Um… his plane lands at six. Hey, thanks for letting him stay. I promise he'll be out just as soon as he finds a place of his own."

"Oh, he needn't rush," Elizaveta smiled, kissing Alfred on the forehead. "It'll be nice having a nurse around."

Alfred gave her a cautious smile. "Liz? Are you feeling alright? Maybe Mattie should take a look at you when he gets in."

"Maybe," Elizaveta said. She grabbed an apple from the fridge. "Have a great day, Alfred. And don't wait up too late for me, okay?"

"Why, do you have plans or something?"

Elizaveta chuckled and stepped out. "Nope."

The door closed behind her.

…

Elizaveta fully intended to go to work. Honest, she did. But when the taxi finally pulled up to her and she finally climbed into the smelly car and the chain smoking driver finally said, "Where to, lady?" her lips accidentally slipped.

"JFK, please," she said. "And take your time."

The driver eyed her in the mirror as he pulled off the curb. "JFK Airport? You going somewhere?"

Elizaveta smiled calmly. "I think I am."

…

"Thanks, Rob!" Elizaveta smiled, tapping the roof of the car. The driver gave her a thumbs-up and pulled away.

Elizaveta felt a growing sense of excitement in her stomach as she turned to face the airport. This was the gateway to so many new lives! Thousands of people came through here every day, walked through these very doors, to find themselves miles and untold miles away from their jobs and families and lives! This was the gate to a new existence, to a deeper meaning, to a connection to the world!

"Excuse me, Miss."

"Hurry up, ma'am."

"Hey! Move your ass, lady!"

"Sorry!" Elizaveta jumped back to let the sudden crowd behind her through the doors. She followed them in.

The airport was still loud, but it had a sort of chaotic orderliness to it that Elizaveta immediately hated. The giant electronic sign flickered letters and times she only barely recognized as destinations. Curiously, she regarded the big BUD and wondered how many people on that plane were going home.

And then she was 18 again, scared of how big the world was and holding herself on an airport bench, wishing her mother was there to brush back her thick hair and tell her she could do it. Elizaveta gasped and fell onto the bench, tears springing in her eyes.

She wanted someone to tell her she could do it if she wanted to. She wanted someone to tell her that she was strong enough and brave enough to take care of herself, but that she didn't have to. She wanted someone to be afraid with her for just a moment, and then tell her a joke.

Who was she kidding? She was living in New York City now. She had a life that she'd made herself. She had people to drink and laugh with. She had a job. Why was she here, in this hot, loud, frightening airport?

Elizaveta cradled her face in her hands. And tried not to cry.

"He, dude," a German accent said. "You okay?"

Elizaveta's eye twitched. "I'm _not_ a dude."

She looked up to find a sniggering, white figure in a black concert tee shirt. She blinked a few times to order the shapes in her head- he was so shockingly _white,_ she just needed a second.

The albino German waved his hand nonchalantly. "Relax, bitch, I call everyone 'dude.'"

"_What_ did you call me?" Elizaveta snapped.

"I call everyone 'bitch,' too," the man said, taking the seat beside her. "I'll let you know when I say something you should be offended by."

"Can I help you?" Elizaveta said, annoyed. She didn't know how to deal with this.

The German laughed. "No, I don't think you can. Kesesese!"

Even his laugh was annoying. Elizaveta gestured for him to leave. "So have a nice day, sir."

The German made a face. "Don't call me 'sir.'"

"Then don't call me 'bitch!'"

The man's red eyes sparkled in glee. "Fair enough. What _can _I call you?"

"Don't call me at all."

The man cackled. "Good one, dude! But if you don't tell me your name, I'll have to tell everyone I met an angry Hungarian woman named Kevin crying in the airport."

Elizaveta reddened. "I wasn't… I'm not… I didn't… _Kevin_?!"

"KESESESE! Are you always this easily flustered? Awesome!"

"_Stop laughing at me!_"

The German stopped laughing and grinned. "Relax, no one's laughing at you. You can call me Gilbert if I can call you by your name."

Elizaveta strangled her bag strap. "I'm Elizaveta."

"Where you headed, Lizzy?" Gilbert grinned.

Elizaveta's eye twitched. Just then, her phone vibrated again. She looked down to see Starbucks calling her. She turned her phone off and sighed.

"I… I don't know."

Gilbert looked surprised. "But… you're in an airport."

"Yeah, I know that, douchebucket. If you must know, I didn't actually plan this."

The pale German man broke into a dazzling grin. "Really? Me either! How'd _you_ end up here?"

Elizaveta eyed the stranger. She couldn't tell Alfred because she cared what he thought about her. Same with Yong Soo and Kiku and everyone she knew in New York. She had to see them every day, and she didn't want them to judge her.

But this pale German man with blood-colored eyes had come out of nowhere, called her dude, bitch and Kevin, sat next to her and he'd asked. He was so rude about it that Elizaveta almost wanted to tell him, just so he'd have to sit there and listen. And then she could forget him, and he could forget her, and both of them could get on with their separate lives in New York.

Elizaveta sighed. "I just… I don't fit."

Gilbert offered her a stick of gum and waved her on encouragingly.

Elizaveta took it and chewed thoughtfully. "I have the life I always dreamed about back in Hungary. I'm a small time film writer, and I'm only going to get better. I'm not starving or homeless. I have friends and a job and I can afford as much beer as I want. But it feels… wrong."

Gilbert snapped his gum. "Wrong how?"

"I don't know," Elizaveta sighed. "Wrong, like, I'm not supposed to be doing this. I'm supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else with someone else. I feel like a cog that just doesn't fit in a clock, and no matter how hard I try to make it feel right, it's just _wrong._"

"Like the rest of the world is moving around you," Gilbert said quietly. "And even though you want to be part of it, you can't?"

"Right," Elizaveta nodded. "I just want to be happy."

"I know just how you feel."

Elizaveta sighed and stretched her arms. "Well. I guess that's just something we need to live with, huh?"

Gilbert smirked slowly. "Live with? But my dear Hungarian lady, there's a very simple cure!"

Elizaveta rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Before I tell you, you need a few drinks in that hung over writer-brain of yours! To the bar!"

Elizaveta stood up. "It's 8:30 in the morning, Gilbert."

"Kesesese!" Gilbert cackled, pointing to the giant electronic sign. "It's five o'clock somewhere!"

**This… is going to take a while. And then longer. This one is going to take me forever. You interested in sticking around? Let me know, and share your travel stories and fun stuff!**


	2. Góðan dag

**OY. The length. And the everything. BUT. The length is epically necessary to maintain the rhythm I want. And deep down, I guess I'm just a rotten brat who wants everything **_**just so**_**.**

**To that end, thank you xxfallenangelmayxx for betaing! Sorry it's not perfect, you'll like the next chapter I swear! Everyone else, don't forget to review or something so I know how to get awesomer. Also, this is actually not going to be pure humor, as evidenced by the genre selection. It's going to be awesome though. I promise.**

Elizaveta woke up with a massive headache. Briefly, she tried to open her eyes, but the light pierced her skull and she swore, shoving her head under her pillow. For a second, she was thrown off by how unusually clean her pillow smelled.

"Good morning, Sunshine," came an obnoxiously familiar voice. "Do you know where you are?"

Slowly, Elizaveta sat up on her bed. If felt funny- bigger, softer and cooler than she was used to. She took the pillow off her face and slowly let her surroundings sink in.

The albino German man from the airport. He was here. He was here with coffee and the self-satisfied smirk of someone who just convinced his professor that the earth is a cube. The smirk annoyed Elizaveta. The coffee did not. She took the hot mug and sipped the black liquid as she looked around.

The floor was clean. The walls were a light, cheerful blue and a television set sat on the dresser in front of her. A giant, open window fluttered the curtains and made the room that was very clearly not her own smell like fish and salt. Elizaveta looked at Gilbert.

"Where am I?"

Gilbert grinned and sat on the edge of the bed. "You are in Reykjavik," he said as if he found everything unspeakably hilarious. "Iceland. You ran away from your life in New York because, as you put it, you 'didn't fit.' So when you met a handsome, dashing stranger in the airport who offered to take you on an adventure, you drank a bottle of tequila, bought a toothbrush and demanded the next plane out to Europe."

Elizaveta climbed out of bed as Gilbert talked. Oh God, she was with a crazy person. Yeah, sure, she was known for doing stupid stuff when she was drunk, but never jumping a plane with a complete stranger to Iceland. Dear LORD she hoped she hadn't slept with him.

But something was off. There wasn't an endless drumming in her head like there usually was when she woke up with a hangover. The world was bright and still, like snowfall. Quietly, she made her way to the window to find New York again.

"GAH!" she shrieked.

Gilbert laughed. "You slept for the whole plane ride, and you were still dozing when you landed in Iceland with the handsome stranger. So, being the model of gentlemanly courtesy, he carried you up to your room in the hotel, where you proceeded to drool all over his pillow."

"No no no no no," Elizaveta panicked, searching for something familiar in the window. The tiny, colorful buildings mocked her and the blue sky stretched as far and as high as she could see. "Where are we? Where did you take me, seriously? Are we in Massachusetts? Did you drug me? Why does it smell like fish? _Where is everybody?_"

"You shrieked," Gilbert cackled. "You didn't know what to think when the sexy German stranger told you what happened, so you thought that punishing his ear drums would magically make the most awesome thing you've ever done never happen."

"FUCK YOU! What the fuck did you give me, you creep?!"

"You thought that screaming would make it all make sense," Gilbert smiled, pinning Elizaveta's flailing wrists to her sides. "But you're still pretty confused and a little scared. You want to yell until the handsome stranger takes you home, but the reason you ran away in the first place is because you don't know where your home is."

Elizaveta opened her mouth to yell at him, but she suddenly wanted to hear him out. At the very least, she would find out exactly what kind of crazy she was dealing with and how to get back to New York without being stabbed by a psycho German.

Gilbert took her silence with a nod of approval. "Even though you don't remember it yet, running away was just as much your idea as the stranger in the airport. You needed to escape. He needed to escape. Neither of you wanted to do it alone, and now you're in a foreign country together, in an awesome room you lied about being on your honeymoon to get, and you have all the time you need to figure out what made you leave everything behind to go on an awesome adventure with a stranger."

Elizaveta eyed him suspiciously. "You're crazy," she whispered.

Gilbert flashed a dazzling grin. "And you're cute when you're mad." He slowly released her wrists and took a step back.

The door knocked.

Elizaveta and Gilbert both jumped as a small voice called through the door. "_Halló? Allt í lagi?_"

"What?" Gilbert called. "Sorry, we don't speak Icelandic."

The doorknob twisted and a young, short man with silvery blond hair and an annoyed demeanor stepped into the room.

"I asked if everything is alright," he said, inspecting the room. "We heard shouting all the way down in the lobby."

"And you just assumed it was us? I feel discriminated against."

Elizaveta felt herself smile, even though she was trying not to. Gilbert grinned and winked at her.

"We generally do put people who drag their unconscious wives upstairs in the 'trouble' category, yes."

"_Wife_?" Elizaveta mouthed at Gilbert. He kissed the air.

"We'll try to keep it down. Emily, wasn't it?"

The hotel worker shrugged. "Emil, dick. Let me know if you two need anything, and keep in mind that all damage to the room will be billed to you."

Elizaveta's eyes suddenly widened. _Money_. She didn't have money! How did she get to Iceland without money, and how would she get home? Had she used her credit card? She couldn't afford all this on her meager Starbucks paycheck and the pittance the porn company paid her! And _work!_ Oh, God, she was supposed to go to work today! Why was she five hours away in Iceland?

As soon as Emil closed the door behind him, Elizaveta lunged for her phone by the bed.

"Shit shit shit shit shit," she said. "12 missed calls! _Shit_!"

She held the phone to her ear and half listened to voicemails from her teenage manager. Gilbert stripped off his shirt and walked into what could only be the bathroom as each voice mail got angrier and angrier until the words "You're fired," hit Elizaveta's brain.

She sat on the bed, dumbfounded, and listened to Alfred ask her if she could pick up bread on her way home from work and Yong Soo wonder if she could come watch a K drama at his place tonight. She lay back on the bed as the albino stranger came back out of the bathroom with a towel over his shoulders and water on his face.

"I need to go back," she said through closed eyes. She felt the bed give to Gilbert's weight as he lay down beside her.

"Need is such a strong word," he said. "Stay here. You know you want to."

Elizaveta opened her eyes and scowled at the man. "I just got fired, Gilbert. As fun as pretending to be your wife in a foreign country sounds, I can't afford this. I have to get back to my life in New York."

Gilbert turned on his side to face her. "You're a writer, Lizzy. Being broke is an occupational hazard. You may as well just embrace it and fuck the world with credit cards."

"Don't call me Lizzy," she growled. "You have _no idea_ what responsibility is, do you?"

Gilbert grinned. "Only that it comes with great power. Come onnnn, life is short! If you died tomorrow, what would you have to show for it other than a couple cruddy porn films?"

Elizaveta's eyes widened. "How did you-!"

"Google," he shrugged. "_Hey Tail YEAH! _Is a very Japanese name, by the way. I thought your company produced anime at first."

Elizaveta covered her face. "Oh God, I wish."

A strangled noise escaped her throat and Elizaveta couldn't say whether it was a hysterical sob or a maniacal laugh. But Gilbert looked at her and laughed, his crimson eyes at once mocking and playful. And suddenly, work didn't matter quite so much. Rent didn't matter. New York didn't matter. The pit of anxiety gnawing at her stomach for the past ten years didn't even matter. She was here now, and it felt so good to just be _here,_ that she giggled along with Gilbert, lighter than she had been in years. Gilbert and Elizaveta tried to choke their giggles back, but that made Elizaveta snort, which made them laugh even harder. Elizaveta chortled and held her stomach while Gilbert pointed at her, cackling, tears streaming down his face. They laughed at each other and at the world until the walls of their room echoed with their glee and the seeping scent of fish seemed so much less scary and foreign.

Elizaveta let her laughter fade and she was left, happy and grinning, on a feather bed in Iceland with a stranger she met seven hours ago.

"What am I doing here, Gilbert?" she giggled. "What am I supposed to do with my life?"

Gilbert chuckled to himself. "You're supposed to live it, dummy."

And then his cool, white hand covered Elizaveta's eyes and she felt the first spark since the morning her parents were killed. Skin touching skin. Human touching human. Friend touching friend.

Connection.

Elizaveta hesitantly touched the hand on her eyes. Her fingers trembled as she traced his knuckles, hairless and faintly scarred. She felt the callouses on his palm against her eyes and she pressed his hand into her face, searching for a heartbeat in the tips of his fingers.

"Um," she heard Gilbert say. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she giggled, suddenly feeling very silly.

"Well _stop it_," Gilbert said. "You're weirding me out!"

Elizaveta moved his hand to her forehead and smirked at him. "You basically kidnapped me," she said. "I get to weird you out as much as I damn well please."

The phone on her chest suddenly buzzed and she groaned.

"I don't want to deal with this," she said.

"I'll do it!" Gilbert said happily. He grabbed the phone from Elizaveta's chest before she could stop him and stood up to answer.

"Hallo, this is Lizzy's awesome kidnapper, who are you?"

From the bed, Elizaveta could hear Alfred's loud laugh. "_You go, Liz!_" he said loudly. "_Get up on that!_"

Elizaveta blushed and pressed her pillow into her face.

Gilbert cackled. "Kesese! I like you! You must be her roommate Alfred! She told me all about you this morning in the bar!"

Elizaveta threw the TV remote at Gilbert and he dodged it playfully.

"Yeah," the German answered. "She's not gonna be able to go with you to the airport, sorry. We're actually in Iceland right now… No, it's a country… No, Europe… No, _Earth_." Gilbert looked at Elizaveta and mouthed "_Really?_"

"_I know,_" she mouthed back.

Gilbert grinned and turned back to the phone. "What's that? No, I'm not going to kill her or sell her in the Lebanese sex slave market. Promise. When will we be back? Guess that kind of depends, right? Well she doesn't _look_ sick…"

Elizaveta held out her hand. "Gimme," she said. Gilbert handed her the phone and she pressed it to her ear."

"Al, hey, sweetie."

"_You ARE there! Good, I thought he had dumped your body and taken your phone or something._"

"You really need to stop watching crappy Netflix horrors, babe."

Alfred laughed through the phone happily. "_Wow, he must be cute! You haven't called me 'babe' since college!_ _What's his name?_"

Gilbert, upon hearing the word 'cute,' suddenly began to mime a strip tease for Elizaveta. Caught entirely by surprise, she snickered.

"HA! It's not like that, Al, it's just a little vacation."

"Adventure," Gilbert corrected.

"_Rrreow,_" Alfred laughed. "_I wish I had your guts, Liz. Any idea when you'll be back?_"

"Probably a day or two. Just gotta clear my head a bit, you know?"

"_Take your time! I like it when you sound happy!_"

Elizaveta smiled. "Thanks, Alfred. I'll see you and Matt when I get back. Kisses!"

"_Kisses!_"

Elizaveta hung up and looked at Gilbert. "Okay. Hypothetically, let's say I agree to stay with you today. What would we do then?"

Gilbert's eyes glittered.

"Then we would find Emily."

…

"We've got all sorts of packages," Emil said at the hotel's front desk. "Most of the agencies are closed right now, but if you wait until morning we can probably set you up."

"Morning?" Elizaveta asked, glancing at the sunny day outside. "What is it, 3?"

"9:30 pm," Emil said, annoyed. "Can't you find a clock?"

Gilbert laughed. "Wow, seriously? We thought all the clocks were broken! Does it ever get dark around here?"

"Not in summer," Emil said. "I can direct you to a nice restaurant if you want an evening out, but I'm afraid no one's taking tourists out tonight."

Elizaveta and Gilbert cringed simultaneously.

"Tourists?" she said.

"Please," Gilbert said. "We don't need a baby sitter."

Emil looked at Gilbert up and down. "I'm not so sure about that."

Elizaveta giggled and Gilbert shot her a look.

"What do you and your friends usually do for fun?" Gilbert asked. "Chill in the hot springs? Go horseback riding? Whale watching?"

"Ooh," Elizaveta said. "That sounds lovely."

Emil chuckled to himself. "No offense, man, but I don't think you and your city wife can handle what my friends and I do for fun."

Elizaveta didn't know if her eye twitched harder at the "city" or the "wife," but she smashed her fist on the front desk, startling both Gilbert and Emil.

"Let me tell you something, buddy," she growled. "You don't even _know_. I once drank a whole bottle of Sriracha _just to feel the pain!_ And then I washed it down with an entire gallon of 2% milk, and I threw up all over my new dress! And here's a little known fact about Sriracha- it's like hellfire going down _and_ coming up! You know what a _sane _person would have done? _Never drank an entire bottle of Sriracha and a gallon of milk again._ Do you know what _I_ did the next weekend? _I did it all over again_! So don't you dare tell me I can't handle the fun! The fun can't handle _me_!"

"Yeah!" Gilbert shouted, slamming his fist on the desk.

"Shut up," Elizaveta said.

Emil looked at the two in disbelief. Slowly, a slightly mad grin spread across his pale face. "You know what? I like you guys. My shift is done in a half hour. Meet me back down here with your wetsuits and dress warmly."

"Wetsuits are for pussies," Gilbert grinned. "We'll meet you down here in our regular bathing suits!"

"Yeah!" Elizaveta said. She didn't think either she or Gilbert had wetsuits.

Emil laughed in what could only be respect. "You two are hardcore. I can dig it. Go get ready, we'll meet my friend here at 10 and then we'll set out."

"So it has come to this," Gilbert said, determined. He and Elizaveta made 'watching you' gestures at an equally confused and amused Emil and backed up the stairs.

As they climbed the first flight backwards, Elizaveta glared at Gilbert. "'It has come to this'? Couldn't you think of a better line? Now he's gonna think we're lame!"

"No way," Gilbert smirked. "He thinks we're totally cool! You did bring your bathing suit, right?"

…

Half an hour later, Gilbert and Elizaveta, having jealously fought each other to change in the bathroom, met Emil downstairs in their shorts and bathing suits. Elizaveta bemoaned the fact that she only had a yellow bikini, but there wasn't anything to do about that. Gilbert wore a dirty T shirt over his blue trunks and a cocky smirk.

Emil and a young Asian waved them over in the empty lobby. "Beilschmidts, yo."

"Beilschmidt?" Elizaveta whispered.

"That's your name, wifey," Gilbert grinned.

"No, fuck you. I kept my own name."

"What? But my dad was so disappointed!"

"We didn't care. We're a modern couple and I have a job that counts on my being recognized. We even joked that you should take _my _name." Elizaveta was surprised at how much fun she had inventing her fake marriage. "In the end, we kept our names."

"Easier to explain our passports, too. Got it." Gilbert nodded in approval as they came to Emil.

"Wow," Emil said, looking at their clothes. "You must have blood like molten steel."

"Ha!" Elizaveta grinned. "Told you we were hardcore!"

"We're maniacs!" Gilbert laughed. "Behold our awesomeness!"

The Asian chuckled. "You're gonna totally love what we have planned tonight."

"Elizaveta, Gilbert, this is Jia Long, my buddy from Hong Kong." As Emil introduced them, Jia Long shook both their hands.

"You're the Beilschmidts Emil was so, like, excited to go out with. Pleased to meet you."

Elizaveta and Gilbert looked at each other. "Well, _I'm_ Beilschmidt," Gilbert explained. "She's Hédarváry."

"I'm a writer, so we decided I should keep my name."

Jia Long gave what he must have thought was a smile. "Totally. Traditional marriage is, like, so lame. You can't just put your name on another human being like you own them."

"I can dig it," Emil agreed.

"Right on," Elizaveta said. It seemed like the cool thing to say.

"So where are we headed?" Gilbert asked.

…

"Ocean," Gilbert said.

"Big ocean," Elizaveta added.

"Sweet ocean," Emil smiled.

"Gentle ocean," Jia Long said.

Gilbert looked away from the rocky Icelandic beach and the miles and miles of blue-grey water to the two young guys in wetsuits. "Wait, are we doing a thing?"

Jia Long and Emil groaned.

"Well _now_ we're not," Jia Long said, rolling his eyes.

Elizaveta snickered. "Way to go, _honey_."

"You guys are totally bold," Jia Long said, unloading the rented kayaks from the truck.

Emil nodded and arranged the four boats. "The first time Jia Long went sea kayaking up here, he couldn't shake the cold for a month."

"Cold?" Elizaveta said. "But, it's summer."

"See?" Emil said. "These guys don't even register the cold. Respect."

"Respect."

"Just call us Team Awesome," Gilbert laughed nervously.

Emil helped Elizaveta into her kayak and handed her the kayak paddle thing she'd seen in commercials on TV. Curiously, she touched the water- and immediately regretted her bikini.

"_Gilbert_," she hissed as he settled into the kayak next to her. "It's _freezing_!"

Gilbert dipped his hand in the calm ocean and his eyes widened.

"_Holy fuck_," he mouthed.

"Yo, Team Awesome," Emil said after he and Jia Long settled into their kayaks, wetsuits and jackets suddenly looking a million times cooler to Elizaveta. "Keep your eye out for puffins and dolphins. First to see a whale wins."

"Wins what?" Gilbert said.

"Dealer's choice," answered Jia Long. "Usually breakfast. Ready?"

"Go!" Emil shouted. He and Jia Long maneuvered their kayaks expertly through the rocky bay and into the glassy water.

Elizaveta and Gilbert grunted as they tried to hop their boats in. The kayaks jumped an inch into the air before falling in the exact same spot.

"I think our kayaks are broken!" Gilbert called. Emil and Jia Long were already small on the water.

"Move your hips," Emil shouted.

"Use your paddle," Jia Long called.

"This is ridiculous," Elizaveta groaned. "If I knew how cold it was gonna be, I'd have dressed for it."

"Should have Googled it," Gilbert grunted as he dry humped his kayak.

"Why didn't you?" Elizaveta snapped.

Gilbert suddenly got his kayak into the water. With a nervous laugh, he pumped his fist. "HA! Nailed it!"

"You know what New York doesn't have?" Elizaveta asked. "Freezing water or kayaks."

"It also doesn't have whales," Gilbert grinned, tugging Elizaveta's boat into the ocean. "Or sun at 10:30 at night, or your dashing fake husband. Come on- let's get us some free breakfast!"

Elizaveta's stomach suddenly rumbled and she remembered that she hadn't eaten since the apple in the taxi two and a half thousand miles ago.

"Icelandic food better be worth it," she grumbled.

"There's the woman I fake married!" Gilbert laughed. "Race you to the wetsuit pussies!"

A grin slowly spread across Elizaveta's face as she paddled. The mountains of Iceland rose like a misty painting and the bow of her boat sliced through the water like a blade. The entire world was cool and still and even the chilly breeze felt like magic on her skin.

Elizaveta chanced a look at Gilbert. She hadn't had much time to form an opinion of her fake husband. She supposed she thought he was a little dangerous- he'd gotten her to run away from everything and get fired, after all. And he was shamelessly obnoxious; when she was getting dressed in the bathroom, he'd used her phone to call Alfred to find out inane little secrets about her, like the ticklish spot on her left hip. That wasn't even taking into account his massive ego and overuse of the word 'awesome.' But the world was on pause for Elizaveta and she looked harder at the albino German- with his glittering red eyes, his dazzling grin and an air filled with determination and something far away and soft, Elizaveta finally made up her mind about him.

He was an idiot.

"Ha!" she laughed as she paddled.

"What's so funny?" Gilbert grinned. They were closing in on Emil and Jia Long's motionless kayaks.

"You're an idiot!" Elizaveta laughed.

"Ouch. My soul," he snickered.

Emil and Jia Long looked at each other. "Do albinos have souls?" Emil asked.

"I think so," Jia Long said. "I think gingers are the soulless ones."

"Oh, right. Or was it vampires?"

Gilbert laughed good-naturedly. "Lizzy's a quarter vampire on her father's side," he said. "Best not say anything intolerant, cuz those fuckers get _scary_ mad!"

Elizaveta bonked Gilbert's head with her paddle. "Shut up or I'll sing you the song of my people."

Gilbert pushed her paddle away with his own. "Oh, that stuff in the shower is singing? I thought you were just strangling puppies in order to suck their blood for breakfast."

"I'll suck _your_ blood for breakfast!"

Jia Long snapped his waterproof camera and Elizaveta and Gilbert stopped dueling each other with their paddles.

"See a whale?" Gilbert asked, crestfallen.

"Nah," Jia Long said. "But you're gonna, like, want pictures of your honeymoon or whatever. Right?"

Team Awesome turned red.

"O-of course," Elizaveta said. "Our honeymoon."

"Can you email me copies?" Gilbert asked.

"Sure thing," Jia Long said, snapping another photo.

Emil smiled and breathed in deeply from his nose. "What a perfect night."

"If you can call it that," Gilbert said, looking at the golden sun. A sudden breeze blew sea mist at Elizaveta and she shivered.

For a long moment, the four kayakers sat in silence, drinking in the perfect view of the mountains and the ocean. A single gull called out.

"I'm bored," Gilbert said. The other three kayakers groaned.

"What?" Gilbert said. Elizaveta punched him in the shoulder.

"We were having a moment, you ass!"

"We were? Crap! How come no one ever tells me when we're having a moment? Mulligan! Do-over!"

Jia Long and Emil rolled their eyes and smiled.

"Let's find us a whale," Emil said, pulling away further into the ocean with Jia Long.

Elizaveta watched them, not wanting to follow but desperate for some food. She sat still in her kayak.

Gilbert nudged her with his paddle. "Hey, Lizzy. You alright?"

"Quit calling me 'Lizzy,'" she grumbled.

"No. Let's go!"

She shuddered. Gilbert pulled up next to her.

"Dude, those guys are just kids. Do you really want to let a couple of kids beat us to the whale?"

Elizaveta's eye twitched. "I do not."

"Then what's the hold-up, Princess? We're not gonna win a free breakfast just sitting around, are we?"

"No," Elizaveta sighed. "I guess not. We can definitely get something to eat after this, right?"

She looked at Gilbert, but he didn't answer. Instead, he just stared, wide eyed, at Elizaveta's kayak.

"Gilbert?" Elizaveta said. "You there? Because I'm starving."

"EMILY!" Gilbert shouted out across the bay. Emil and Jia Long were deeper in the open ocean.

"_DICK!_" Emil shouted back.

Gilbert laughed. "WE WIN!"

Elizaveta looked all around, frantically. "What? Where? I don't see anything!"

Emil and Jia Long began to paddle back in disbelief. Gilbert grinned.

"Look down, Lizzy."

Elizaveta looked over the side of her kayak. The sunlight illuminated most of the ocean a bright greyish gold, but the water beneath her was black.

"Oh _shit_!" Elizaveta said. "What is that?"

And then the black water became clearer as the shape rose. It was twice as large as her kayak and freaking her out. Elizaveta recognized eyes and a wide, smiling mouth directly under her boat. Gilbert paddled backward to watch in awe.

"_That's a whale!_" Elizaveta shouted. "_That's a goddamn whale!_"

Emil and Jia Long were closing in and laughing. "_The minkes don't usually come in so shallow_!" Emil yelled. "_How big is it_?"

"At least five meters!" Gilbert shouted back. "Safe, right?"

"Total pussycats!" Jia Long responded.

Elizaveta looked down in awe. "I've never seen a whale up close before," she murmured to Gilbert. "He's beautiful."

Slowly, she put her hand in the freezing water. The whale's head moved under her kayak and she reached out to touch its back.

Suddenly, she felt a massive bump. Before she could correct the kayak, she was headfirst in frigid water, the kayak upside down overhead.

Elizaveta panicked. She tried to scream and got half a lungful of salty ice water. She kept her eyes tightly closed, but her muscles froze in the cold. She couldn't find which way was up, but she heard a faint screaming from somewhere. Elizaveta drifted in a daze; a rush of water signaled the whale's diving back into the depths. She heard herself think, "_Yeah, you better run_."

The world was still and quiet and gently cold. Elizaveta had the sensation that she was rising, like a balloon. She wondered, absurdly, what time it was in New York.

And then she felt the rough, cool air bite into her skin like sandpaper and she felt herself tumble against hard plastic.

"LIZZY!" a voice screamed. "LIZ! Hey, up here! Look at me!"

Annoyed, Elizaveta pried her eyes open. She shook violently, freezing. The albino German yanked her to an uncomfortable sitting position in front of him in the kayak and thumped her back. Elizaveta coughed salty water into his lap.

"Shit," Gilbert said, peeling off his relatively dry T-shirt and pulling it over Elizaveta's head. "Are you okay?"

"Wh-wh-wh-what h-happened?" Elizaveta shuddered. She felt Gilbert's cool arms close around her body and he rubbed the T-shirt into her skin. She heard Emil and Jia Long shout instructions at each other in Icelandic.

"The fucker came up for air and knocked you into the water," Gilbert said, pulling Elizaveta closer. She shook uncontrollably. "I awesomely grabbed you out. You're welcome."

Elizaveta huddled against Gilbert and looked up. "Th-thanks, G-Gilbert."

"Jesus," he murmured. "You're _freezing!_" He turned Elizaveta around in the tiny kayak and held her back to his chest.

Emil pulled up next to Gilbert and Elizaveta. "That was so hardcore! You guys alright?"

"F-feed me," Elizaveta stuttered. Gilbert laughed.

"I think we're good, Emily."

Jia Long paddled up next to Emil. "Juvenile minke. I don't think I've ever seen one that close before- you two are, like, so lucky."

Gilbert snorted and Elizaveta felt warmer. She clutched the shirt around her body.

"Breakfast better be the greatest thing in the damn world," she said.

Emil grinned and faced shore. "I know just the thing. Come on in, guys. It's midnight or something, but I don't mind cooking."

Elizaveta glanced at the sun peeking over the mountains and rolled her eyes. "Iceland is _weird._"

The abandoned kayak bobbed uselessly behind Gilbert and Elizaveta as they followed Jia Long and Emil. When the 'wetsuit pussies' were well ahead and out of ear shot, Gilbert chuckled down at Elizaveta.

"You never drank a whole bottle of Sriracha, did you?"

Elizaveta huddled closer to Gilbert's chest. "I put a little on my Pad Thai by accident once. I thought I was gonna die.

Gilbert cackled. "KESESESE! Awesome!"

…

Emil had a suite in the hotel with a little kitchenette. After Gilbert and Elizaveta ran upstairs to change into jeans and sweaters (she had been _really_ out of it when she packed her bag,) they ran back down, ready to eat the hell out of anything.

Until they walked into the suite.

As soon as Jia Long answered the door to the suite, they were hit with a wall of stench.

"_Good God_," Elizaveta coughed. "What _is_ that?" Gilbert gagged.

"Emil wanted to make something hardcore enough for Team Awesome. Congratulations. You win hákarl."

Elizaveta and Gilbert held their sweaters over their noses and Gilbert turned a little green. They followed Jia Long into the suite.

"Why do I get the feeling Emil hates losing?" Elizaveta asked through her plugged nose.

"What on earth would give you that idea?" the young blond man answered from the kitchen. He ushered everyone to a small table in the kitchenette and sat them down. Gilbert's red eyes glazed over.

"What's hákarl?" Elizaveta asked as Emil dished chunks of… meat? Probably? Into shallow bowls.

"Start with a basking shark," Emil said happily. "They're really poisonous fresh, so we behead and bury it."

"Let it rot for a few months in the sand," Jia Long added. "Cut it into strips and hang it out to dry for a few more months."

"Cut off the crust," Emil finished, sliding the bowls to Gilbert and Elizaveta, "cut into cubes and eat. Jia Long, can you grab some buckets from the bathroom?"

"Why?" Elizaveta said suspiciously as Jia Long left.

"Because sometimes people throw up the first time they try hákarl. You two are cool, but it's just in case."

"You're a dick," Gilbert moaned, holding his stomach.

Emil shrugged. "That hurt my feelings. Try plugging your nose for the first bite. It tastes like cheese soaked in bleach."

Jia Long came back with the buckets and Gilbert immediately dry heaved into his.

Elizaveta patted his back. "Gilbert, you okay?"

He coughed. "God, that just smells _disgusting!_" He retched again.

"Can't even put it in his mouth," Jia Long said, shaking his head. "Major bummer, man."

Elizaveta met Gilbert's eyes. He looked like he was in pain, and could not be more annoyed about it. The idiot really, really wanted to save face on this one, but he just couldn't stomach the rotten meat. But Team Awesome could do this. She nodded at him.

"Well, _I'm_ starving," Elizaveta said, staring Emil straight in the eye. She picked up the shallow bowl, ignored the horrible smell and tipped it down her throat. She immediately regretted it.

The shark meat was slimy and soft, like if jello cubes were made of bleach and fish fat. She swallowed hurriedly, gagging as the slimy cubes made their way down. A taste like extremely rotten sharp cheddar lingered on her tongue and she slammed the bowl back onto the table. She resisted the retch growing in her stomach.

Emil and Jia Long stared at her in awe.

"Dear God," Emil said.

Gilbert squeezed Elizaveta's shoulder with a mixture of awe, pride and gratitude.

"You rock, Lizzy," Gilbert said, head still half in the bucket.

She pressed her fingers to her lips to keep herself from gagging. She casually flipped Emil the bird.

Slowly, Emil grinned. "_Helvíti_," he said. "You guys are way cooler than I thought!"

Jia Long took a bottle from the mini fridge and a four glasses from a cupboard. "You've earned your _brennivín_," he said, pouring shots of clear liquid into the glasses. Without even asking what it was, Elizaveta slammed the glass back to wash the hákarl out of her mouth. It hit the back of her throat like fire, and she gasped. Gilbert drained his down as well.

"This drink," Elizaveta said as the room swam with fishy fumes and alcohol. "I like it. Another!"

Gilbert and Emil laughed and Jia Long topped them off.

As Elizaveta and Gilbert drank, Emil turned to Jia Long.

"They could be a lot of fun, you know."

The Asian nodded. "They're totally cool. I think we should ask them."

"Stop right there," Gilbert said, pouring himself a third shot of _brennivín_.

Elizaveta swayed in her seat. "Yes to whatever it is!"

The last thing Elizaveta remembered, she was high fiving Gilbert and toasting with Jia Long.


	3. God Dag

**OH MY YELLOW HAIRPIN. This took FOREVER, am I right, ladies? Real quick prelim author's note: Husk is a real band. I don't care. I was brainstorming great band names and I was like, "OH MY JESUS HUSK WOULD BE SO SUPER BADASS," so I went with it, but further research says they're a real thing. The Hetalia guys are not the real band. Know this.**

**AUGH THE TERRIBLE BUT I HAVE TO PUBLISH!**

Elizaveta smelled the earth before she tasted it.

Clean and full, the ground surrounded her. Elizaveta casually wiped the mud from her lips with the sleeve of her tattered, dirty blouse. As the thick, cool dirt filled her senses, she dreamily wondered when the last time she'd vacuumed the apartment was. Or had Alfred had another ill-advised experiment in the living room? She didn't want to clean…

Then she remembered that she wasn't in New York anymore and she almost laughed in relief. But the dirt she was lying face down in was almost certainly not in the hotel room she'd rented with her ill-advised travel companion, so she still had very little idea where she was. With a groan, she pushed herself onto her back and looked up into a bright blue and tree-filled sky. Was it late morning? Or was she still in the bizarre, sunny evenings of Iceland? Her head spun.

"What…" she started, wiping earth from her mouth.

"Good morning, Sunshine!"

Elizaveta turned her head to an amusingly upside-down campsite and a grinning upside-down Gilbert. She waved and he laughed.

"Do you know where you are?" Gilbert asked cheerfully.

Elizaveta sat up slowly- her head was threatening to roll off her shoulders. "Where am I?" she asked.

Gilbert handed Elizaveta a muffin and a lukewarm paper cup of coffee. "You're in Tromøy, Norway," he grinned, "with the handsome stranger you met in a New York airport two days ago and a couple dudes you just met last night. You're worried that you're starting to make this a habit."

Elizaveta rolled her eyes at Gilbert and sipped the cool, strong coffee. She took a bite of the banana muffin. Sure. Norway. Why not. Where was Norway again? Right by Sweden, she thought. Where was Sweden again? The years she spent in America had, she thought, a dumbing effect on her. Her head swam as she took another gulp of coffee and wondered if she believed the pale man in front of her.

Gilbert sat in front of her and brushed his hair back with his fingers, smiling. "Upon pissing off a whale in Reykjavik yesterday, you and your fake husband were deemed cool enough to eat rotten shark meat and drink the drink of Vikings. It made you bold, so when Emil and his friend Jia Long suggested a music festival with Emil's brother, you practically crapped yourself. Your fake husband laughed and you all hopped a redeye to some unpronounceable city in Norway and took a boat out here."

Elizaveta smiled. _I'm sure you did laugh, you bastard_, she thought. She took a bite of the muffin and looked around. The sparse forest was filled with colorful tents and laughing people, milling around and talking excitedly in languages she couldn't even name, let alone follow. But Elizaveta was most interested in the tents. If there were tents all around her, why had she apparently spent the night outside? She shook dirt from her hair and frowned.

Gilbert laughed at her bewilderment. "You spent all night partying with Emil's brother's band. You were the life of the party and you even outdrank the Dane, which, as Emil pointed out, is as big an achievement as eating _hákarl. _At 7, you got tired. The band invited you and your fake husband to stay in their tent, but you got a boner for stars and wanted to_ '_sleep under the sky' even though the sun was already up. You didn't even ask your fake husband if he cared about sleeping in the dirt."

At this, Elizaveta cracked a smile. "So you should have slept with them, idiot. You don't have to follow me."

Gilbert stood up and brushed off his knees. "And leave you to fend for yourself in the wilderness of Norway?" he grinned. "You'd be dead before lunch."

Elizaveta let Gilbert help her to her feet and she rolled her eyes. "Because Norwegians are so vicious," she smiled, pointing to a young couple cheerfully making sandwiches for two small children. "Wouldn't want to be alone with one of those."

"I wouldn't recommend it either," a thickly accented voice said behind Elizaveta, making her yelp in surprise.

"Ah! Hello! Who are you!"

Elizaveta turned to find a bored looking blonde man with icy eyes and a golden hairclip. His black T-shirt was ripped, but Elizaveta had the feeling that it was scruffy on purpose- his hair and face were annoyingly clean.

Politely, she stuck out her hand. "Sorry. Hi, I'm Elizaveta Hédérvary, and this is Gilbert Beilschmidt."

The blonde man raised his eyebrows and looked to Gilbert. Gilbert grinned.

"Don't worry, she didn't remember me either at first."

"No wonder Mathias likes her so much," the blonde man smiled.

Elizaveta had no idea what they were talking about, but she got the feeling she ought to be embarrassed of something. She blushed. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

Gilbert laughed and slung his arm around Elizaveta's shoulders. "Lizzy, this is Lukas Bondevik, Emil's older brother. We partied with him and the band last night."

"There's really a band? What?"

Lukas quirked an eyebrow at Elizaveta. "You're much more adorable than most alcoholics I know."

"_What?_"

Elizaveta was fumbling around to figure out if she should be apologize to, thank or yell at the stranger when a loud, flat voice rang out across the campsite.

"LUKAS, YO! LUKAS!"

Lukas rolled his eyes. "Speak of the devil," he said. A tall blonde man ran up behind Lukas and wrapped his arms around him, laughing. Lukas bristled like a cat being forced into the tub.

Elizaveta looked up at Gilbert, demanding an explanation. He shrugged.

"Hey, Mathias," Gilbert smiled, bumping the new blonde's fist. "How's it hanging?"

"To my knees," Mathias grinned wickedly. "What are we talking about?"

Lukas pulled Mathias' arm down under his chin. "Elizaveta has a drinking problem," he said.

Elizaveta blushed furiously. Mathias looked her up and down for a second.

"Damn straight!" he finally agreed. "Her problem is that she doesn't have a drink!"

He and Gilbert laughed loudly, high-fiving. Lukas scowled, but his eyes sparkled and Elizaveta sighed in relief when she realized they were just teasing her. Nonetheless, she made a mental note to watch how much she drank. She didn't even remotely recognize Lukas or Mathias.

"Lizzy!" Mathias grinned. "Where'd you run off to this morning? You were just about to explain how to play Happy Ninja Star Drink Fun Time!"

"HA!" Elizaveta laughed. Happy Ninja Star Drink Fun Time was a drinking game Alfred had taught her in college. It involved a deck of cards, beer and the desire to get absolutely blasted. Mathias mentioning HNSDFT was a relief. She only ever taught it to people she liked, which meant that she must have liked these people. She smiled her friendliest smile and Gilbert beamed.

"She wanted to stargaze," Gilbert provided. "New York doesn't have these clear nights and she wanted to find those awesome lights we saw on the trip over."

Elizaveta shoved Gilbert's shoulder and Mathias nodded sagely, releasing Lukas.

"Ah, yes. That's exactly how I felt the first time I came to the Hove Festival."

Lukas rolled his eyes. "This idiot is such a city boy. When I told him we were camping the first time we came, he started looking for an RV."

Elizaveta and Gilbert laughed.

"You would love my roommate back in New York," Elizaveta grinned.

"I know," Mathias said. "You said that like twenty times last night."

"We made a drinking game out of it," Gilbert winked.

Elizaveta blushed. Had she really? What else had she said?

What else had she _done?_

She heard Lukas and Mathias invite her and Gilbert to lunch at the tent and she heard herself agree. Gilbert slung his arm over her shoulders and they followed a few steps behind the blonde pair.

As Mathias chattered and tried to put his hand on Lukas' ass, Elizaveta spoke to Gilbert in a low voice. "Did I do anything… embarrassing last night? Anything I should know about?"

Gilbert grinned. "Not in front of these guys, no. You're good."

She looked up, panicked. "What? Who did I embarrass myself in front of?"

The albino shrugged. "Maybe steer clear of the group of blue tents by the fjord. And you cried a bit before you fell asleep."

"I _cried?!_" Elizaveta sputtered.

"Something about your parents and the Milky Way. You passed out before you could explain it to me."

Elizaveta glared at her feet. It was the worst possible thing. She had cried in front of someone who, despite being the only person she knew in Norway, still counted as a perfect stranger. Worse, she'd cried over something as silly and childish as the Staircase to Heaven. Elizaveta did not cry easily, and she especially didn't cry in front of strangers. She was mortified.

"Don't let me touch a drop of alcohol tonight," she grimaced.

Gilbert looked like he wanted to argue, but the look on her face silenced him.

"Deal," he whispered. "And you don't let Berwald kill me."

"What?!"

They had stopped by a very large tent and Elizaveta's outburst startled a small blonde man carrying a plate of sandwiches to a crowd of canvas chairs. Deftly, an Asian man Elizaveta didn't immediately recognize as Jia Long caught the plate and all the sandwiches before they hit the ground. The newest blonde laughed and thanked him while Lukas and Mathias raised their eyebrows teasingly at Elizaveta. She smiled back sheepishly.

"Gilbert! Elizaveta!" the new blonde called cheerfully. "_There_ you are! We were worried you got lost somewhere!"

"I'm offended, Tino!" Gilbert said back. "Men don't get lost- they just find an awesomer way!"

Emil emerged from the large red tent. "Charming. Did the map help at all?"

Gilbert grinned. "Good morning, Emily! Thanks for the coffee!"

"You're welcome, dick."

The blonde called Tino rushed up and pecked Lukas and Mathias on the cheeks. "Your brother's looking for you, Mat."

"What? I didn't do it, I was with Lukas! This is bullshit!"

Tino and Lukas exchanged a look and Lukas crossed his arms.

"I'm not bailing you out again, Mathias. Not if you put that thing in Berwald's sleeping bag."

Mathias gave the most subtle of winks to Gilbert, who choked back a snicker. Elizaveta looked between the two, confused.

Tino sighed. "It still counts as your fault if you got someone else to do it, Mat."

Elizaveta turned red and rounded on Gilbert. "_What_ did you do?"

Gilbert and Mathias burst out in laughter. "It was- hahaha! Just _sleeping!_"

"What did-HA! Hahaha! What did you _want_ me to do?"

Elizaveta looked at Tino. "I am so sorry. I should have kept a closer eye on this one."

Tino smiled sweetly. "Oh, Liz, don't worry. A squirrel in a sleeping bag is par for the course with Berwald and Mat. Berwald knows whose fault it is."

Mathias stopped laughing suddenly and looked up, panicked. "What-?"

A sudden streak of blue and blonde hit Mathias like a train and suddenly he was on the ground, wrestling with a giant, blonde bear of a man in a T shirt.

"Ow! _Geddoff_, yeh bastard!

"M'ke me," grumbled the large, bespectacled man. "I f'ckin' _dare_ ya."

Lukas sighed and grabbed a sandwich from Jia Long's plate. "Mathias, don't make Berwald punch you too hard. We need him to play bass tonight."

"OW! I'm- _oof!_- trying! AH! You heard Luke, bro, cut it out!"

Elizaveta looked nervously at the brothers trying their very best to murder each other on the campground and back up at Gilbert. Shockingly, he was cracking up.

Elizaveta punched him in the arm. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Emil came up beside her. "Don't worry, Liz. This is how these two say 'hi.'"

"Just like Ludwig!" Gilbert laughed. "Awesome!"

"Your brother?" Emil asked.

"Your _brother_?" Elizaveta said. And then she found herself asking stupid questions in her head, like, _Gilbert has a brother? Since when does he have a brother?_ and _There's MORE of these_?

"Alright, boys," Tino called. "That's enough. Come get lunch."

Berwald and Mathias pushed away from each other, grunting. Mathias nursed a dark black eye and a split lip while Berwald tried to staunch the flow of blood from his nose with his palm. Their eyes glittered merrily.

"Boys are _weird_," Elizaveta breathed.

"Tell me about it," Jia Long sighed. Emil laughed and steered Elizaveta and Gilbert to a pair of canvas chairs near Tino.

Lukas was threatening Mathias. "I swear to God if you hurt Berwald's hands, Mathias…"

"What, with _my face_?"

"Yes."

"Oh, leave him alone, Luke," Emil said. "It's not his fault he's so punchable."

Mathias laughed. "Thanks, munchkin!"

"Oh, Liz!" Tino said suddenly. "I nearly forgot! You got a call from Alfred a little after you left!"

Elizaveta bolted up. "Oh my God, my phone!"

Berwald motioned for her to sit down as he finished cleaning blood off his hands with hand sanitizer and the back of Mathias' shirt. "R'lax," he mumbled. "Yeh left all yer st'ff here."

"Oh! Thank you so much!"

Lukas tossed Elizaveta her phone. "Might wanna keep it short. The charges are outrageous."

Elizaveta groaned. "NOW you tell me. What time is it in New York?"

"Five thirty," Emil supplied, sitting down at Jia Long's feet. Jia Long began to arrange Emil's messy silver hair into neat, tiny braids.

Gilbert shrugged at Elizaveta. "You can wait. More coffee?"

"No," Lukas answered for her shortly. "It's mine."

…

"You're lying, Mathias. I watched you do it."

"Yeh wouldn' sh't up about it fer a week."

"You showed me and Liz pictures last night, dude!"

"LIES! These are lies you are speaking and you are liars for speaking them!"

Emil met Elizaveta's eye across the canvas circle of shouting blondes and they smiled at each other, raising their soda cans in a silent sober toast.

Mathias glared at his bottle of wine. The band's manager, according to Tino, always made sure they were very well provided for in drinks.

"This is stupid," Mathias grumbled. "You're stupid. You guys are performing tonight; you can't play Never Have I Ever!"

"_We're_ performing," Lukas clarified. "We don't need _you_."

Elizaveta laughed and toasted Mathias. "I've drawn on a drunk person too, Mat. Alfred passed out in the tub after our last finals party in college and he was so hungover, he didn't realize the glasses were marker for half a day!"

Gilbert grinned and tapped Elizaveta's bottle of Diet Coke. She rolled her eyes and took a swig, smiling giddily.

Mathias "humphed." "I know at least one of you is lying," he said, pointing at the blondes and Jia Long. "I've woken up with a marker tramp stamp more times than I can count!"

"You can't count to five," Emil quipped.

"Emil," Tino playfully scolded.

"I ain't drinking until one of you owns up!" Mathias pouted. "I don't care that you've got a show! You sound better drunk anyway."

Tino looked to Berwald. Berwald looked at Lukas. Lukas nodded at Emil. Emil looked at Jia Long. Jia Long shared a look with Tino.

Everyone took a drink from their wine and soda.

"WHAT?" Mathias shouted over Elizaveta and Gilbert's explosive, gut-busting laughter. "Are you freaking _serious?!_"

"Let's stop playing," Jia Long suggested. "Before he asks about the rabbit."

"_What?_" Mathias shouted.

"Or the sandwich," Lukas nodded.

"Or the sweater," said Emil.

"Or the doll," Tino smiled.

"Or th' b'rthmark," Berwald mumbled.

Mathias stared at them, open mouthed. "You guys are _assholes_," he said.

Elizaveta finally caught her breath and stopped laughing, but her cheeks ached from her stupid grin. Gilbert squeezed Mathias' shoulder.

"I know that feel, bro," Gilbert said. They clanked wine bottles.

Lukas looked at his watch impatiently. "Tino, where is he?"

"Relax, Lukas. We don't need to start setting up for another half hour."

"He's cutting it kind of close, isn't he?"

Tino didn't answer, but he shotgunned the rest of his bottle of wine.

Elizaveta turned to Berwald. "Who are you waiting for?"

Berwald turned pink behind his glasses and his throat rumbled quietly. Not sure if she offended him, Liz looked at Tino.

"Our drummer," Tino said. "Eduard. He'll be here."

"Or else," Lukas warned.

"Or else," Tino echoed cheerfully.

At that moment, a loud, smoothly accented voice cut across the bustling camp grounds.

"_Siin_! Guys, I'm here!"

"See?" Tino grinned at Lukas and stood up to wave. "Eduard! Just in time!"

A slim, blonde man in a tie and glasses ran up to the campsite with a briefcase, breathless.

"I… _hah_… I am so sorry I'm late."

Jia Long stood up and shrugged. "You're not late until they start playing without you."

Lukas shot a sharp glare at Jia Long and stood up. "Shut up. Eduard, what kept you?"

Elizaveta and Gilbert joined the rest of the band standing up. Berwald and Mathias began collecting heavy looking bags from the tent and Gilbert cheerfully took a couple from Mathias' shoulders.

Eduard looked at the ground, embarrassed. "Work kept me a bit longer than I thought. There were some complications with a dura mater graft and Dr Braginski does like his papers in order."

Emil tugged the buttons on Eduard's neat shirt. "You know your boss is just taking advantage of you, right? You should quit."

"And go where? Braginski is a great doctor and no one else is hiring."

Lukas sighed and tightened Eduard's tie tight against his throat. "The least you could have done is come covered in blood again. Everyone loved that."

Eduard gave a small smile as his face grew red from the cut circulation. Elizaveta wondered if this was another "Boys are weird" thing or if Lukas actually meant to make Eduard pass out.

"They wouldn't let me on the ferry with the bloody scrubs. I'll put them on backstage."

"Wait…" Elizaveta said. "Bloody scrubs? You mean, for the show?"

Everyone looked at her, surprised.

"Oh, right!" Tino recovered, embarrassed. "That's just part of our image, don't you worry! Eduard, this is Elizaveta, and Gilbert's over there! I think you spoke to him on the phone last night when he and Mathias crank called you."

"Hi, Ed!" Gilbert waved.

"Hi, dick!" Eduard waved back cheerfully. "And Elizaveta, was it?"

Liz stuck out her hand. "Hello!"

Eduard shook her hand, puzzled. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

Liz was taken aback, but nothing about Eduard, from his crisp, washed out blond hair, to his murky green eyes and squareish glasses, to his slightly twitchy hands, seemed at all familiar.

"Um," she said, embarrassed. "Would I have been drunk at the time?"

"I don't know…"

"You would totally know," Jia Long said. "Liz is a very difficult person to forget when you've seen her drunk."

"Hey!" she laughed, punching the Asian in the shoulder.

"My apologies," Eduard smiled, relieved. "You just look so familiar."

Music began to filter through the trees and several hundred screams drowned out the words as the festival started up. Lukas grabbed a bag from Gilbert. "Well, let's go," he said, annoyed. "We're on in half an hour."

"How can I help?" Liz said.

Emil and Jia long took the rest of the bags from Gilbert and Mathias. "Stand there and look pretty," Jia Long said dully.

"Follow Mat to the stage," Emil said. "Having amateur roadies on a tight schedule is more trouble than it's worth."

Liz was about to protest, but Mathias stretched out his arms and yawned, hitting Gilbert in the face, and she sort of saw his point. "Good luck!" she called to the band as they cleaved a path through the crowd of chattering people.

"Keep the idiot out of trouble!" Lukas called over his shoulder.

Liz looked at Gilbert and Mathias wrestling each other on the ground. "Which one?" she yelled.

Tino laughed. "Good luck!" he called.

When the crowd reformed, Liz put her hands on her hips. "Alright, boys. What now?"

Mathias successfully put Gilbert in a headlock and cackled. "Now we go enjoy the show!" He helped a panting Gilbert to his feet. "I hope you like metal!"

Liz raised her eyebrows and Gilbert asked the question. "Metal? _Those_ guys?"

"The black metal-est!" Mathias grinned. "They're called Husk. Are you familiar with Scandinavian metal bands?"

"I'm not," Liz frowned. "Is Scandinavian metal tamer than American? I can't really see Tino breathing fire."

"Maybe Berwald," Gilbert pointed out. Liz nodded.

Mathias laughed. "Ooh, you two are in for a treat. I mean, _I'm_ not a huge fan of hardcore metal, but they're really good!" He grabbed a little camera bag from under his chair and started walking in the direction the band had gone. Gilbert and Liz followed him.

"So, you're Berwald's brother, right?" Liz said, trying to piece it together.

"And you're with Lukas," Gilbert added. Liz looked at him, confused, but she supposed that little factoid must have come out last night.

"Yup, yup!" Mathias said cheerfully. "Ber went to Norway with his wife and stepson seven years ago and came back with Lukas and a bass guitar!"

"Oh, he's married?" Liz said.

"Widowed five years ago. Brain cancer. It absolutely destroyed him."

Next to Liz, Gilbert stiffened.

"That's terrible," Liz said sadly. "I can't even imagine."

"We didn't think he'd ever get over Christiana," Mathias continued. "Then two years ago they brought on Tino, and it's like Berwald's back to his old self! I mean, did you see how talkative he was today?"

Liz forced a smile. "I must have missed it."

Mathias laughed. "Ha! Believe me, this is as talkative as he gets. The month after Christiana died, he only said two words, and that was to Peter before he went to live with his dad in England."

"Peter's his stepson?"

"Yup! We still see him all the time, though, so it's totally cool. Ber lives for that kid."

Liz looked at Gilbert, but he was staring off into the distance, lost in thought. She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.

"Hey! Spacy! You okay?"

Gilbert seemed to put a great deal of effort into snapping himself out of his brooding. "I'm awesome, geez!"

Mathias ignored them. "Lukas heard Tino playing guitar in a coffee shop when we were in Finland for a show and demanded him almost immediately. He's WAY better than Luke, haha!"

"And Ed?" Gilbert asked, but more to be polite than anything. He was still struggling to keep a smile on his face.

"A friend of Tino's. The old drummer quit about a year and a half ago, so Tino mentioned his surgeon friend from Estonia. He's pretty good."

What Gilbert said next was lost in the sudden screaming of three hundred people. The throbbing noise shook Elizaveta's eyeballs and made her dizzy, so she covered her ears and looked at Mathias. He looked to be laughing and pointing toward the stage. Gilbert gave a genuine laugh and nodded as Mathias took out his camera and dashed to the stage.

"_ARE THEY ON NOW?" _Liz yelled over the screams.

"_WHAT?_" Gilbert yelled back.

"_I SAID, ARE THEY-"_

"_WHAT?_"

"_WHAT?!_"

Gilbert laughed and shook his head. He grabbed Liz's wrist and pulled her toward the back of the forming crowd just as the enormous speakers on either side of the stage boomed a short Norwegian introduction, and then-

"_HUSK!"_

The crowd roared and Gilbert and Elizaveta laughed, trying to peer over everyone to see Lukas, Tino, Berwald and Eduard. An angry guitar solo ripped through the air as the crowd cheered and Gilbert let out a silent whistle.

"Damn, Tino," he grinned. Elizaveta smiled and stood on her toes, but she still couldn't see.

The drums crashed suddenly and a throbbing bass deepened the guitar. An angry voice tore through Elizaveta's ears and she cocked her head. "Is that Lukas?"

Gilbert took her hand and laughed. "I can't see a thing," he shouted. "Let's get closer!"

Elizaveta nodded and Gilbert led her back to the stage, pushing people aside. The speakers throbbed harder and Liz thought that if it was possible for a brain to pop, this would pretty much do it.

Finally, they were only a couple of rows from the stage as the band screamed and raged on. Some people danced violently around while others cheered. Liz looked up at the band to find a familiar face-

"_HOLY SHIT," _she yelled to Gilbert. "_IS THAT THEM?_"

The shirtless singer's hair was pitch black, and his painted white face emphasized the bleeding black makeup on his eyes and mouth as he screamed what sounded like Norwegian obscenities into the microphone. The guitar player- _was_ it Tino?- also had black hair and a wide, screeching red mouth and he tore at the strings of a deep red, violently shaped electric guitar. Berwald, despite being painted hair to feet in white with eyeballs painted at odd angles all over his body, was completely recognizable from his height and his stillness as he thumped a bass line. Tino jumped up and down spastically next to him and a green eye on Berwald's cheek lifted in what could have been a smile. Eduard at the drum set wore blood spattered white scrubs and a lab coat. He smashed the drums with a sort of cool malice that hit Liz's eardrums like shattered glass. In fact, the way everyone's voices and instruments crashed together hurt Liz's head and lungs. The screaming was disorienting.

Oh God. She hated the music.

Liz looked up at Gilbert to see if maybe he hated it too, but he was screaming and jumping along with the rest of the crowd. Dismayed, Liz turned back to watch Husk begin their second, furious song.

A hand closed over her eyes in the lull. Liz jumped.

"You're a newbie," Gilbert's voice said in her ear against the music. "Let me help. Okay?"

Liz smiled and nodded. The darkness was a little comforting- until Gilbert pulled her body tight against his, holding her eyes closed from behind with one hand.

Liz startled. "Gil, wha-"

A soft fist hit her breastbone. Liz blindly tried to swat Gilbert's hand away.

"_Ow_," she said. "Knock it off!"

Gilbert ignored her and beat a steady rhythm in her chest. "This is the only way to appreciate metal if you don't already like it," he said above the din. "Relax, okay?"

Liz pulled his hand off her face and looked Gilbert in her bright red eyes. "Are you serious right now?" she yelled.

"Would I hurt you?" he asked, exasperated.

"Would you?"

"No!"

Liz glared at Gilbert. Slowly, she placed his cool, white hand over her eyes again and leaned back into his chest. He laughed and thudded a quick, steady beat into her breast and she listened.

The music still sounded like broken glass. But slowly, as everything disappeared but the screaming, the glass and Gilbert's comfortable, unrelenting hands, it began to sound softer, like it might not cut her. She began to move with Gilbert's gentle fist and she realized he was beating the bass line into her heart. She smiled and giggled as she felt Lukas' tortured screams in her veins.

It was such violent, thrashing, mindless music that Liz began to feel a very happy sort of angry. She reached behind her and hugged Gilbert's waist against her back tightly. He laughed and softened his fist.

"No," Liz grinned madly. "Harder."

"What?"

"_Harder_."

He hesitated and she pinched his ass and laughed when he yelped. "Don't stop," she yelled.

She felt Gilbert smile as he hit her chest over and over with the beat of Husk.

"I can feel it," she whispered.

…

When the sun started to happily melt into the horizon and the sky began to darken ever so slightly, Lukas ripped out a soul tearing shriek that, having his music so deep in her blood, Elizaveta correctly interpreted as the end of Husk's set. Gilbert released her eyes and they laughed and cheered with everyone else in the slowly growing crowd. They looked up at the band- all of Husk was sweating profusely, making their painted faces run and giving them a strange sort of melting look. Lukas and Tino's sprayed black hair stuck messily to their foreheads in the summer heat and left marks on their faces, but they smiled at their fans- Tino giddily and Lukas tiredly. Lukas thanked everyone and, on a final wave of screaming applause, Husk left the stage for the next band.

Liz let out a final whoop and turned around to face Gilbert. "_THAT WAS AWESOME_!" she shouted.

Gilbert winced. "Woah, chill out, spaz. You don't have to yell."

"I'M NOT YELLING," Liz yelled. "QUIT WHISPERING, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Gilbert laughed and a flash of light blinded both of them.

Liz groaned and blinked the dots away to see Mathias with his camera, grinning an unduly proud grin.

"Well?" he said. "Awesome, right?"

"So awesome," Gilbert grinned.

"_SO AWESOME!_" Liz yelled.

Mathias stumbled back teasingly. "Woah there, _Goll_!"

"HOW LONG UNTIL THE RINGING GOES AWAY?"

Mathias turned to Gilbert. "She's new at this, huh?"

"How could you tell?" Gilbert chuckled.

"Just a hunch. You're joining us for dinner, right?"

"Sounds awesome!"

"YOU GUYS DON'T EAT ROTTEN SHARK TOO, DO YOU?"

Mathias raised an eyebrow. "Well, _that's _going to be fun."

"Don't worry," Gilbert laughed. "It shouldn't last too long.

"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Liz yelled. "GUYS? ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME? I THINK THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY EARS!"

…

The ringing had subsided in Elizaveta's ears by the time Husk, Emil and Jia Long came back from the beach, scrubbed clean of hair dye and makeup. Liz, Gilbert and Mathias had spent the past half an hour cleaning up the camp, fixing an impressive pile of sandwiches, arguing angrily over whether the Germans, Hungarians or Danes were better cooks and listening to a mellow music filter through the campsite. Gilbert and Mathias were sipping beer and Liz a Sprite when she spotted them trudging, shirtless, back in the twilight.

Liz squealed and jumped up. "That was _amazing!_" she cried. Tino laughed and took her hands.

"Thank you _so_ much, Liz!" he smiled. "I'm glad you got to see us on such a good day!"

Mathias and Gilbert followed her, grinning. Mathias fought Lukas' protests and kissed him loudly on the cheek and Gilbert took a bag from Emil.

"You guys hungry?" Gilbert asked.

"Thirsty, more like," Emil said. "Ed hasn't had his requisite drunkening yet."

"Oh, no thank you," Eduard laughed. "After the birthmark incident with Mathias, I don't quite trust you to not ruin my life when I'm drunk."

Lukas and Tino laughed and Mathias glared at them. "What birthmark? _That _birthmark? Oh my God, is that why I'm not allowed on the train anymore?"

…

When it was well dark, Liz took a long look at the sky. The night was filled with stars, the moon only a sliver. She spotted the Big Bear and the Little Bear and found Hercules twinkling dully. A meteor shot across the blackness and into the Milky Way and Liz realized she wanted to go to bed. She stood up from her laughing, joking, drinking friends and stood up to yawn and stretch.

Jia Long smiled at her. "Total party foul, Liz."

"I know," she yawned. "Sorry, long day. I think I'm gonna get some sleep."

Lukas looked at his watch. "It's midnight. Boo."

Gilbert laughed and disengaged himself from arm wrestling Berwald. "I hear ya. We'll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?"

"The boat leaves at 10," Lukas said. "Don't be late."

"We won't!" Liz said cheerily. "Gil, you can stay if you want."

He shrugged and put his arm around Liz's shoulder. "Night, everyone!" he called over his shoulder as they walked into the woods. Liz waved.

They walked in silence for a while, listening to the chirping insects and a distant guitar. Liz broke the silence first.

"I like them," she grinned.

"Good," Gilbert smiled back. "London will be pretty awkward if you don't like anyone there!"

She laughed. "You're a very persuasive man, you know that?"

Gilbert pinched her cheek. "And I didn't even have to get you drunk first!"

They stopped just short of the rocky beach and Liz looked at him. "Thank you so much, Gil," she said.

He grinned. "No problem, dude."

"I'm serious." Liz grabbed his shoulder. "I usually need half a fifth of cheap vodka to feel this happy at the end of the night. Thanks for kidnapping me."

Gilbert's eyes began to drift far away to the sea, where miles out, the Milky Way tapped the water. "Thanks for letting me," he said softly.

Liz followed his eyes and smiled. "The Staircase to Heaven," she said, sitting in the grass. "Wanna hear something stupid?"

"Always," Gilbert grinned, sitting beside her.

"When my grandmother died when I was a kid, my mom held my hand and pointed my finger at the Milky Way. 'Wave to Nagyi,' she said. 'She's walking up the Staircase to Heaven right now! She'll be having coffee with angels by morning!' So I looked for the star that had to be my grandma and I waved goodbye. Then, when I was sixteen, my parents were killed by a drunk driver coming home from a party."

Gilbert shifted uncomfortably and patted Liz's knee. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

She smiled at him. "Thank you. It's better now, but as a teenager it hurt a lot more. It wasn't so much a broken heart as it felt like it was ripped out of my chest, and I felt like I was going to die every second I spent knowing that I'd never spend another second with them."

Gilbert smiled softly and brushed Elizaveta's hair behind her ear. "I know."

"Do you?"

"Yeah," he said. "My mom died when I was just a kid. Brain cancer, just like Berwald's wife… Just like-"

He choked and slapped a hand to cover his eyes. Elizaveta turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

Gilbert took a deep, ragged breath to keep from sobbing and cleared his throat. "It is what it is," he said in a calm, measured voice. "At least I still had my dad and my little brother, you know? What did you do?"

"I went to live with my aunt and cousin," Liz said. "My mom's sister is Polish, but she worked in Budapest. The night after my parents died, I went for a walk out to a little hill and as I lay down, I saw them."

"In the Milky Way?" Gilbert smiled.

"In the Milky Way," Liz said. She leaned back into Gilbert's chest. "It was a new pair of stars, right next to each other, bright as the moon. It had to be them, I'd never seen those stars before. So I cried like a baby and I prayed for them to be at peace but, maybe, every now and then, to think of me, and I would never go a day without thinking about them."

Liz played with a few threads in Gilbert's ripped jeans. "When Nagyi and my dog died, I could never find the same stars again. Mom told me that's because they'd finished saying goodbye and were ready to go to heaven. But Mom and Dad stayed."

"How long?" Gilbert asked.

Liz grinned. She took Gilbert's hand and pointed it across the ocean to the bright, familiar stars she hadn't seen in years, not since she'd moved to New York where the only lights in the sky are airplanes and spotlights. "They're right there. And every time I see them in the sky, I feel just a little bit less alone."

She laid back into Gilbert's chest and sighed. He shifted.

"That wasn't stupid at all," he murmured.

"No?"

"No!" Elizaveta jumped at how loud he said it. "What the hell, Lizzy? You promised a stupid story!"

Liz glared at him. "Why are you being such a jerk all of a sudden? Jeez, you're so insensitive!"

"_I'm_ insensitive? You promised to tell me something stupid, so I got my hopes all up some sad story about dead parents! I feel cheated!"

"Well, _sorry,_" Liz shouted. She moved to get up angrily, but Gilbert wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back into his lap. "Let _go_, asshole!"

"No!" Gilbert shouted back. "Not until you tell me a stupid story! Actually, I think you have to tell two now that you bummed me out with the first!"

"God, you are SUCH a man-child!"

Gilbert responded by throwing a leg over Liz's, pinning her hips to the ground. "I don't want to play dirty, but I will if you make me."

Liz struggled against his arms. "Let me _go_, jerk!"

Gilbert poked her left hip and she shrieked.

"_EEP!_ _What the hell_?"

"Ooh," Gilbert snickered. "It _is_ like a squeal-button! Go Alfred!"

Liz reddened. "Stop that! You're being stu- _EEP!_"

"You owe me two stupid stories."

"Fine!" Liz shouted. "Once upon a time, there was a German idiot named Gilbert Beilschmidt. One down."

Gilbert poked her and she shrieked again.

"FINE! Jesus! What do you want to hear?"

Gilbert moved his leg off of Liz. "Aren't writers supposed to be storytellers?"

Liz sighed, trying to think of a good story to tell. She did feel a little guilty for unloading her baggage on Gilbert, but she was blanking on stories. All the dumb things she'd ever done drunk paled in comparison to flying halfway around the world with a stranger. All the hilariously stupid jokes Alfred ever told her seemed too short to count. She looked up to the sky and brightened suddenly.

"Ah! _Qixi_!"

Gilbert cocked his head. "Chi she?"

Liz smiled. "_Qixi_. It's a dumb story my landlord told me from China. My friend Yong Soo says the story originated in Korea, but he says that about everything. It's like the Chinese Valentine's day. I think it's like in a month."

"It sounds stupid already!"

Liz lay on her back and told Gilbert to lay in the opposite direction so they were lying in a straight line, their heads resting on one another's shoulders. Liz took Gilberts finger and pointed it to the Milky Way, to Vega. "The Chinese say that once, the Goddess had a beautiful fairy daughter named Zhinu."

Gilbert laughed. "_Xenu_? The Scientology alien dude?"

"No relation," Liz smiled. "Zhinu was just a fairy. She was in charge of weaving clouds for the earth, but one day she got bored and wandered down to earth."

"Cloud weaving doesn't sound like very stimulating work," Gilbert nodded.

Liz shook her head. "Zhinu didn't think so. You can only make so many cloud bunnies before they take over for you."

"Ha!"

"So she was bored," Elizaveta said. "She came down to earth to chill out with a couple of her fairy friends. Meanwhile, a peasant cowhand with nothing but a tiny cottage and a vegetable garden started hearing his single ancient ox talk."

Gilbert smiled knowingly. "Was he growing mushrooms?"

"Probably. The ox told Niulang that he used to be a star, but he got kicked out of heaven for bringing seeds to earth. He said that soon, three fairy women would come to bathe in the magical pond behind his cottage, and if he stole the cloud fairy's clothes, she would be forced to stay on earth and marry him."

"That _is _romantic," Gilbert said.

Liz laughed. "More romantic than I've ever heard Mr Wang be! So Niulang waited until the fairies were giggling and laughing about dumb fairy stuff and he stole Zhinu's dress. The fairies spotted him, grabbed their clothes and flew back into the sky, but Zhinu was trapped."

Gilbert laughed. "Okay, now you have to do the voice!"

Liz rolled her eyes. "'_Gimme my clothes back, jerk_,'" she said in a prissy fairy voice.

"'Come and get them,'" Gilbert smirked.

"Noooo! I'm not decent!"

"That's too bad. Guess I'll just take this dress for myself. I look stunning in pink."

"HA!" Liz laughed. "Will you close your eyes if I come out to get them?"

"Noooope," Gilbert grinned.

"Fine! I'll just wait until you die and take it from you!"

"And in the meantime, you'll turn all pruny and wrinkly in the water. And then who will love you?"

Liz narrowed her eyes in mock anger. "What do you want?"

"Will you marry me?" Gilbert winked.

Liz tugged his ear. "That's no way to propose to a fairy, dumbass!"

"Wrinkles!"

"Fine! Let's get married! Give me my dress back!"

Gilbert laughed and Liz joined him.

"So Zhinu and Niulang got married," Liz continued. "They had two kids, a boy and a girl, and they were very much in love."

Gilbert laughed. "Good story! One down!"

Liz looked at him confused. "But-"

"Nah, I'll make you tell me the other one later," he yawned. "I'm tired now."

He kissed her chastely on the cheek. "Goodnight, Lizzy. I'll see you in the morning."

Liz kissed Gilbert on the cheek. "Goodnight, Gil."

Gilbert rolled over and almost immediately began snoring softly. Liz chewed her lip and looked at Vega, sitting across the Milky Way from Altair. She didn't get to explain how, furious that her daughter had gone behind her back and married a mortal, the Goddess of the Western Sky tore Zhinu from her husband's arms and dragged her back to heaven. And she didn't get to tell him how the ancient ox sacrificed himself so Niulang could fly to heaven with his children to be with his beloved wife. She didn't get to explain how the Goddess was determined to keep Zhinu and Niulang apart, so she created the great, milky river in the sky to separate them. And she didn't get to tell how once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the magpies flew to heaven to create a bridge with their wings so the two lovers could be together and in Asia they celebrated a family reunited with melon carving and sewing contests. Nor did she tell him that in a modern world, the _Qixi_ festival has become a relic of an older world that no one celebrated anymore, or thought important.

She looked at Gilbert's snoozing white head, luminous in the darkness. She smiled. He sure did know how to end a story.

**Unlike me, bloohoohoo! Christmas on a cracker, this took forever! AND IT IS SO LONG! Ach! And we're only on the third chapter? Holy muttonchops, this is gonna be rough! Go ahead and unsubscribe if you don't like stories that update every three months and take FOREVER AND A HALF to get through! Everyone else, I love you, but you have terrible taste. AAAAAACCCCHHH! I cut out most of the part about Liz's parents because I didn't want to be too long for a comparatively short concert, BUT THEN QIXI HAPPENED AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT BECAUSE I'M A DUMB STUPID IDIOT! Oy vey. Oh! Thank you, Sparrowh and Slovenskych, for your travel advice! Mind if I ask again closer to those countries?**

**I'll see y'all again in like two months OH GOD THE PAPER and wish me luck with the RA interview AND OH GOD THE 16 PAGE RESEARCH PAPER ON VODKA VIS A VIS GLOBALIZATION COLLEGE WILL KILL ME BEFORE I GET TO THE REAL WORLD! Also I'm very excite for the third season of Hetalia, yes yes. Very excite.**


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